From 2002 until 2004, midtown Manhattan had an oasis for jazz singers: Chez Suzette, a French restaurant that offered a nightly array of vocalists. Many were local and unknown; a few - Mark Murphy, Meredith d'Ambrosio, Rhiannon - are more renowned. That valiant nightspot was short-lived, but it helped spread the word about a lot of worthy performers - among them Melody Breyer-Grell, the host and booker and a singer whose talents equaled those of almost anyone she presented. You'll hear her gifts on The Right Time, her second CD. This is no pyrotechnical, self-indulgent jazz singer, but one who makes her mark in subtler ways. Melody communicates words with clarity and warmth, while letting the composer's intentions shine through. You won't hear a note of excess. "This music calls for simplicity," she explains. "It's just not interesting if it's overblown." With impeccable and imaginative taste, she straddles jazz, cabaret, and show music, making it all sound like one. Backing her are six players who, like her, understand that less is more.
   If her blunt, earthy manner reminds you more of a saloon keeper than a chanteuse, chalk it up to her humble beginnings: Melody is a plumber's daughter from Long Island. Her father had a natural tenor voice, but with a family to support, "he could never consider music as a practical way of life for himself, even though he dreamed about it," she says. Melody, however, showed such prodigious abilities that she went to Manhattan School of Music at age twelve. Five years later she starred as Mimi in a regional production of La Boheme. "It was real easy for me," she says. Both her parents worked hard to pay for Melody's musical training. They hoped she would pursue opera, but when she played a lead role in a high-school production of Brigadoon, she began to feel the lure of popular music.
   Around that time she discovered Eileen Farrell, a great operatic soprano who had veered successfully into pop in an acclaimed album, I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues. It made Melody feel she could go in the same direction. A bigger revelation came through Ella Fitzgerald's legendary Song Books. "The sounds I heard were alternately thrilling and relaxing," she says. With that, she decided that classic pop was for her. "I felt I would be entering a whole new phase in my life," she explains. "It seemed reckless and dangerous, like whenever one'jumps into a new passion."
   She didn't do so frivolously. Melody started a rigorous period of study, poring over the standard repertoire and investigating the vocal masters. "It always came back to Frank Sinatra," she says. "There is not one female singer that I identify with as much as Sinatra."
   In the '90s, she showed off what she had learned in a few New York cabarets, including Don't Tell Mama. Her pianist and musical director, Gregory Toroian, "constantly stressed that I should use the words to find my voice, and not lock into any perception of how my voice should be 'produced,' " But she wanted to fuse that interpretive quality with a jazz feeling, one that would enhance the lyrics. "I respect bebop, but at this point it's not for me," she says. "When I first heard California cool jazz, I thought, wait a minute - this is much more my culture! I identify with lyricism rather than notes." One particular singer from that scene, June Christy, a deeply moving storyteller, made a big impact on her. "She was someone who really influenced me a lot," says Melody. "She was mysterious, sultry, and innocent all at the same time." As Melody learned, jazz singing is "just as rigorous as opera. You need exactly the same amount of focus and presence." She kept seeking out pros to guide her. "I basked in the warmth and kindness of Peter Eldridge of the New York Voices. Mark Murphy reinforced the importance of diction, rhythm, and interesting vocal arrangements. Finally I was able to put all these things together when I started working with Jay Clayton. She was with me from start to finish on this project. Jay is probably the most innovative jazz singer on the scene while I am just getting my feet wet. Her knowledge and patience are invaluable to me."
   In an untraditional move, Melody employed the Manhattan-based Jazz Singer Tessa Souter to act as her co-producer. "While Tessa is pursuing her own burgeoning career, she took the time out to be present during the process, both inside and outside of the studio"
   Melody chooses her musicians as wisely as she does her mentors. Pianist Gloria Cooper, a doctor of music at Long Island University, is a friend to vocalists, both at the keyboard and away from it. With the music publisher Don Sickler, Cooper wrote the manual Jazz Phrasing: A Workshop for the Jazz Vocalist. She also edited a songbook, Sing JAZZ! Bassist Neal Miner played regularly at another late, lamented club; Small's, in Greenwich Village. There he accompanied the extraordinary veteran jazz crooner, David Allyn, among many others. Trumpeter and teacher Noah Bloom, who graduated from the Mannes School of Music in the late '90s, has recorded several albums under his own name. Meeting him, says Melody, "was in conjunction with hearing my first Chet Baker album. His lyricism is the heart of this CD." She so loved the "inventive and unique sound" of guitarist John Hart that she was tempted, she says, "to call it the John Hart project, featuring some girl singer." Drummer Andy Watson plays with Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin's groups; percussionist Kahlil Kwame Bell has appeared with everyone from Luther Vandross to Roy Hargrove to the Alvin Ailey Dance Company.
   Only the best songs found their way onto this album. Mark Murphy suggested that Melody use Miles Davis's All Blues to underpin Out of This World, a 1945 movie theme by the most blues-influenced of all pop songwriting geniuses, Harold Arlen. The famous riff from Benny Golson's Killer Joe sets up Watch What Happens; that was Gloria Cooper's idea. A few phrases from Old Devil Moon were added spontaneously; they "just melodically clicked right in," says Melody. "I did all the other arrangements while working with Jay, who contributed her ideas. You'd call them head arrangements. I said, I want this here, this here, I want to slow down here, speed up here."
   But there's no fussiness on this album. You may be surprised to hear her once-through rendition, with piano only, of Frank Loesser's I've Never Been in Love Before, a lusty showstopper from Guys and Dolls. "I decided to do just one chorus and not carry on about it," she says. "I wanted it to be a simple statement." She gives the same treatment to Bronislau Kaper's Invitation, written for the 1953 film of the same name. "I just love this song - the lyricism, the mystery, the noir quality." Kurt Weill's This Is New, from Lady in the Dark, reminds her of a bygone era of German cabaret. A 1962 revue, Billy Barnes' L.A., is the source of the rarest song on this CD, Does Anybody Here Love Me? Actress Joyce Jameson sang it in the guise of Marilyn Monroe.
   Melody is known for matching the verses and choruses of different songs. On this album, Day Dream leads into You Go to My Head; I Didn't Know What Time It Was into You Don't Know What Love Is. "It's something almost mystical," she says. "You have all these songs in your repertoire and all of a sudden you go, wait a minute, that song has the same exact subject as this, and it fits in mood-wise and melodically."
   But the flow of this program was carefully considered. Melody wanted these pieces to constitute a story - "not just a bunch of songs," she explains. "It was really meant to be an experience." This happy meeting of cabaret and jazz is full of pleasures, as you'll hear for yourself.